New Garden: Twilight
Prose: Nicholas Pascarella
Photography: Nicholas Pascarella, James Woodard, Ryan Kelly, Richard Souza, Glenn Riegel
I was looking forward to New Garden. Not only to see my buddies; many of which I hadn't seen since Dover, but also because New Garden is a boss show. The hometown, grassroots shows always have so much charm and character, but even among them, New Garden shines. If you're lucky enough to be hanging around in the warm months under starlight, chances are you'll enjoy the pungent aroma of the nearby mushroom farms. It's a sniffer's reminder of the funky treasures New Garden holds.
This year, due to many TFR's impacting New Garden on weekends, the show was held on a weekday in the evening. There was a bit of concern whether people would come out, especially after the show was punted back a day to avoid a cold front of storms moving through. These concerns were more than quelled by the time the show had started; we could tell from our media area in the show box that the crowd had swelled to such a thickness that we could not see through to the main hangar on the other side of the crowd. And 'cold' was more of a relative term than an absolute one; it was still hot.
A few warbirds' props stood head and shoulders above the crowd, pointing their noses proudly at the sky; this is one of the intimate things about New Garden - you watch the show with the performers' aircraft. As the show began and progressed, the crowd parted for the birds to be pulled out to the hot ramp and fired up for their performances, offering many young ones their first up-close experience with a vintage combat aircraft. As much of a hindrance the TFR's have been to New Garden recently; pushing their airshow to an evening infused a fresh electricity into the air. The monster truck and bouncy houses were in full swing from across the field; we took stock of the scene walking to the media box from the crowd line.
The sun had already started throwing warm orange tones when the show got underway, and with them, the cooler air of evening washed over the crowd. The performances included skydiving, the EAA 240 chapter aircraft, a few model aircraft, the L-birds, T-6's with a rippin' solo performance from Kevin Russo, Jason Flood in the angry-sounding Red Ghost Pitts, Matt Younkin in the Beech 18, and Mark Murphy with Charlie Lynch in the P-51 Mustang and the A6M Zero. But deviant to the standard airshow routine at New Garden, the light dimmed as the show progressed, and inversely, the drama of the performances increased, as the the Earth rotated away from the sun.
The Zero and Mustang put on a great tail-chase over the field, twisting and climbing into the deep blues before diving on each other and passing over us, maneuvering into the sunset. The sound of the two fighters blasting around was incredible to begin with, but the sultry low light of sunset bouncing off the aircraft was downright sublime. At times as the Mustang dove at show center, the polished spinner became a perfect fish-eye mirror for the entire world below, capturing the crowd, the sunset, and the 360-degree horizon in the world of the smoothly spinning prop.
Matt Younkin closed the show with his night performance, which happened to be a first for me. His daytime routine was incredible to begin with; I love seeing aircraft doing what they were not meant to do. Not to mention the sound of that beast as he dives towards the field. But at night, when all you can pick up is the radial crescendo of that Beech diving at the field, the air of anticipation rose like the cresting of a wave. At the right moment, he would flip on all his lights and flashers and appear like a phoenix over the field, trailing thick plumes of smoke from both engines as he ascended into a roll or a loop.
Once his maneuver was completed, he would go dark once more - dramatically vanishing into the thick black of night. It was a stunning performance, and the crowd was very enthusiastic. He landed and taxied in, and the fireworks team got to work with a beautiful show. Any aircraft on the ramp became fair game for crowd photos as the fireworks burst brightly behind them. For a few moments during the show, the crowd was still. The half moon hung just above the horizon, getting progressively more yellow as it descended, and all one could hear was the fireworks and the camera shutters between pops. New Garden had delivered once more.
The Full Disc team humbly thank Jon Martin and the rest of the New Garden team for another unforgettable event.
